Copyright Takedown Requests to Google Doubled In 2013

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Last month, a company working on behalf of the publisher Random House, asked Google to remove links to a free copy of Stephen King's Carrie from search results. Google complied for three out of the four requested links, but didn't remove Kim Dotcom's new website Mega.co.nz as requested — for even if Mega is hosting pirated copies of Carrie, they sure aren't on the homepage. But leaving that link up was an exception to the rule. More and more, copyright owners and the organizations they employ are cutting off where the websites and the public meet — the search engine. Google's transparency reports show that requests to remove links to copyrighted material rose steadily in 2013. The search giant received 6.5 million requests during the week of November 18, 2013, which is over twice as many as the same week a year ago. Google said it complies with 97 percent of requests." I know someone who had his original work taken down by a Warner Bros DMCA bot (without recourse, naturally, since only lawyers are people nowadays).

Comments

Change the business model

[Scowler]

Google+YouTube benefit financially when they only minimally follow the DMCA rules, and put the cost of policing rights violations entirely on rights holders. This is especially galling when Google+YouTube "earn" ad revenue on pages alongside rights violations. This model is wrong, and unfair. Google+YouTube should have a much stronger financial disincentive in place against facilitating rights violations, at least to the point where they are more proactive about it and don't simply wait for takedown notices to flow in. In other words, yes, the DMCA actually doesn't go far enough.